Rikard’s Choice
Matthew Ryan Fischer
“I think we need to leave town.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“That was close. We’re lucky we got away alive and avoided being
arrested.”
“I think you need to calm down and think things through.”
“There were police there. And Agent.”
“We have no idea what was happening. We work for Tarik and Tarik’s
boss works for one of the families. Those Agents weren’t there because of us.”
“Tarik will kill us. His boss will kill us. None of them would
stand up to The Dragons if came down to it. We’re just a couple of drivers.”
“We didn’t do anything wrong. We did what we were told and we
drove the girls to the club, that’s all. The police weren’t there to bust us.”
Rikard knew Vik was making sense. But Vik didn’t know the whole
story, about Arch or any of that. If he did, he might want to run too. But to
admit that was to admit he was betraying his bosses and the families and that
he deserved whatever the Agents wanted to do to him. Rikard trusted his
brother, but he didn’t know if he could trust him that much. They weren’t
actual blood and as much as Vik seemed to love him and their mother, ultimately
if it came down to survival, Rikard was pretty sure Vik would want to live more
than he’d want to protect an adopted family.
“What about mom,” asked Rikard.
“They wouldn’t hurt her.”
“If they want us, to punish us, they’d do anything.”
“You want to take her and go? Go where? Do what? Leave Jakarta. With
no money. Lose the restaurant.”
“Better to lose all that than our lives.”
“Why are you so worked up about this? The Agents were there for Rama.
You saw it, same as me. We just have to find him. If he’s alive, then it was
nothing and the police were a coincidence.”
“And if we can’t find him?”
“Then I’ll think about where we can take mom. But we can’t walk away
now over nothing. The gangs might not send someone to find two missing drivers,
but we’d never be able to come back here. I don’t want a life of running.”
“Fine. You go look for Rama.”
“What are you going to do?”
Talk to Arch and see if he could protect us, thought Rikard. But
he wasn’t ready to tell Vik about Arch yet.
“I’ll go talk to Tarik, check in on the girls. It might be a risk,
but it’s worth taking.”
“Be careful. Bail if anything seems off.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.”
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